“By
far the most effective branch of political education, which in this connection
is best expressed by the word 'propaganda', is carried on by the Press. The
Press is the chief means employed in the process of political 'enlightenment'.
It represents a kind of school for adults. This educational activity, however,
is not in the hands of the State but in the clutches of powers which are partly
of a very inferior character. While still a young man in Vienna I had excellent
opportunities for coming to know the men who owned this machine for mass
instruction, as well as those who supplied it with the ideas it distributed. At
first I was quite surprised when I realized how little time was necessary for
this dangerous Great Power within the State to produce a certain belief among
the public; and in doing so the genuine will and convictions of the public were
often completely misconstrued. It took the Press only a few days to transform
some ridiculously trivial matter into an issue of national importance, while
vital problems were completely ignored or filched and hidden away from public
attention.

The
Press succeeded in the magical art of producing names from nowhere within the
course of a few weeks. They made it appear that the great hopes of the masses
were bound up with those names. And so they made those names more popular than
any man of real ability could ever hope to be in a long lifetime. All this was
done, despite the fact that such names were utterly unknown and indeed had
never been heard of even up to a month before the Press publicly emblazoned them.
At the same time old and tried figures in the political and other spheres of
life quickly faded from the public memory and were forgotten as if they were
dead, though still healthy and in the enjoyment of their full viguour. Or
sometimes such men were so vilely abused that it looked as if their names would
soon stand as permanent symbols of the worst kind of baseness. In order to
estimate properly the really pernicious influence which the Press can exercise
one had to study this infamous Jewish method whereby honourable and decent
people were besmirched with mud and filth, in the form of low abuse and
slander, from hundreds and hundreds of quarters simultaneously, as if commanded
by some magic formula.

These
highway robbers would grab at anything which might serve their evil ends.

They
would poke their noses into the most intimate family affairs and would not rest
until they had sniffed out some petty item which could be used to destroy the
reputation of their victim. But if the result of all this sniffing should be
that nothing derogatory was discovered in the private or public life of the
victim, they continued to hurl abuse at him, in the belief that some of their
animadversions would stick even though refuted a thousand times. In most cases
it finally turned out impossible for the victim to continue his defence,
because the accuser worked together with so many accomplices that his slanders
were re-echoed interminably. But these slanderers would never own that they
were acting from motives which influence the common run of humanity or are
understood by them. Oh, no. The scoundrel who defamed his contemporaries in
this villainous way would crown himself with a halo of heroic probity fashioned
of unctuous phraseology and twaddle about his 'duties as a journalist' and
other mouldy nonsense of that kind. When these cuttle-fishes gathered together
in large shoals at meetings and congresses they would give out a lot of slimy
talk about a special kind of honour which they called the professional honour
of the journalist. Then the assembled species would bow their respects to one
another.

These
are the kind of beings that fabricate more than two-thirds of what is called
public opinion, from the foam of which the parliamentary Aphrodite eventually
arises.

Several
volumes would be needed if one were to give an adequate account of the whole
procedure and fully describe all its hollow fallacies. But if we pass over the
details and look at the product itself while it is in operation I think this
alone will be sufficient to open the eyes of even the most innocent and
credulous person, so that he may recognize the absurdity of this institution by
looking at it objectively.

In
order to realize how this human aberration is as harmful as it is absurd, the
test and easiest method is to compare democratic parliamentarianism with a
genuine German democracy.

The
remarkable characteristic of the parliamentary form of democracy is the fact
that a number of persons, let us say five hundred--including, in recent time, women
also--are elected to parliament and invested with authority to give final
judgment on anything and everything. In practice they alone are the governing
body; for although they may appoint a Cabinet, which seems outwardly to direct
the affairs of state, this Cabinet has not a real existence of its own. In
reality the so-called Government cannot do anything against the will of the
assembly. It can never be called to account for anything, since the right of
decision is not vested in the Cabinet but in the parliamentary majority. The
Cabinet always functions only as the executor of the will of the majority. Its
political ability can be judged only according to how far it succeeds in
adjusting itself to the will of the majority or in persuading the majority to
agree to its proposals. But this means that it must descend from the level of a
real governing power to that of a mendicant who has to beg the approval of a
majority that may be got together for the time being. Indeed, the chief
preoccupation of the Cabinet must be to secure for itself, in the case of' each
individual measure, the favour of the majority then in power or, failing that,
to form a new majority that will be more favourably disposed. If it should
succeed in either of these efforts it may go on 'governing' for a little while.
If it should fail to win or form a majority it must retire. The question
whether its policy as such has been right or wrong does not matter at all.

Thereby
all responsibility is abolished in practice. To what consequences such a state
of affairs can lead may easily be understood from the following simple
considerations:

Those
five hundred deputies who have been elected by the people come from various
dissimilar callings in life and show very varying degrees of political
capacity, with the result that the whole combination is disjointed and
sometimes presents quite a sorry picture. Surely nobody believes that these
chosen representatives of the nation are the choice spirits or first-class
intellects. Nobody, I hope, is foolish enough to pretend that hundreds of
statesmen can emerge from papers placed in the ballot box by electors who are
anything else but averagely intelligent. The absurd notion that men of genius
are born out of universal suffrage cannot be too strongly repudiated. In the
first place, those times may be really called blessed when one genuine
statesman makes his appearance among a people. Such statesmen do not appear all
at once in hundreds or more. Secondly, among the broad masses there is
instinctively a definite antipathy towards every outstanding genius. There is a
better chance of seeing a camel pass through the eye of a needle than of seeing
a really great man 'discovered' through an election.

Whatever
has happened in history above the level of the average of the broad public has
mostly been due to the driving force of an individual personality. But here
five hundred persons of less than modest intellectual qualities pass judgment
on the most important problems affecting the nation. They form governments
which in turn learn to win the approval of the illustrious assembly for every
legislative step that may be taken, which means that the policy to be carried
out is actually the policy of the five hundred.

And
indeed, generally speaking, the policy bears the stamp of its origin.

But
let us pass over the intellectual qualities of these representatives and ask
what is the nature of the task set before them. If we consider the fact that
the problems which have to be discussed and solved belong to the most varied
and diverse fields we can very well realize how inefficient a governing system
must be which entrusts the right of decision to a mass assembly in which only
very few possess the knowledge and experience such as would qualify them to
deal with the matters that have to be settled. The most important economic
measures are submitted to a tribunal in which not more than one-tenth of the
members have studied the elements of economics. This means that final authority
is vested in men who are utterly devoid of any preparatory training which might
make them competent to decide on the questions at issue.

The
same holds true of every other problem. It is always a majority of ignorant and
incompetent people who decide on each measure; for the composition of the
institution does not vary, while the problems to be dealt with come from the
most varied spheres of public life. An intelligent judgment would be possible
only if different deputies had the authority to deal with different issues. It
is out of the question to think that the same people are fitted to decide on
transport questions as well as, let us say, on questions of foreign policy,
unless each of them be a universal genius. But scarcely more than one genius
appears in a century. Here we are scarcely ever dealing with real brains, but
only with dilettanti who are as narrow-minded as they are conceited and
arrogant, intellectual DEMI-MONDES of the worst kind. This is why these
honourable gentlemen show such astonishing levity in discussing and deciding on
matters that would demand the most painstaking consideration even from great
minds. Measures of momentous importance for the future existence of the State
are framed and discussed in an atmosphere more suited to the card-table. Indeed
the latter suggests a much more fitting occupation for these gentlemen than
that of deciding the destinies of a people. Of course it would be unfair to
assume that each member in such a parliament was endowed by nature with such a
small sense of responsibility. That is out of the question.

But
this system, by forcing the individual to pass judgment on questions for which
he is not competent gradually debases his moral character. Nobody will have the
courage to say: "Gentlemen, I am afraid we know nothing about what we are
talking about. I for one have no competency in the matter at all." Anyhow
if such a declaration were made it would not change matters very much; for such
outspoken honesty would not be understood. The person who made the declaration
would be deemed an honourable ass who ought not to be allowed to spoil the
game. Those who have a knowledge of human nature know that nobody likes to be
considered a fool among his associates; and in certain circles honesty is taken
as an index of stupidity.

Thus
it happens that a naturally upright man, once he finds himself elected to
parliament, may eventually be induced by the force of circumstances to
acquiesce in a general line of conduct which is base in itself and amounts to a
betrayal of the public trust. That feeling that if the individual refrained
from taking part in a certain decision his attitude would not alter the
situation in the least, destroys every real sense of honour which might
occasionally arouse the conscience of one person or another. Finally, the
otherwise upright deputy will succeed in persuading himself that he is by no
means the worst of the lot and that by taking part in a certain line of action
he may prevent something worse from happening.

A
counter argument may be put forward here. It may be said that of course the
individual member may not have the knowledge which is requisite for the
treatment of this or that question, yet his attitude towards it is taken on the
advice of his Party as the guiding authority in each political matter; and it
may further be said that the Party sets up special committees of experts who
have even more than the requisite knowledge for dealing with the questions
placed before them.

At
first sight, that argument seems sound. But then another question
arises--namely, why are five hundred persons elected if only a few have the
wisdom which is required to deal with the more important problems?

It is not the aim of
our modern democratic parliamentary system to bring together an assembly of
intelligent and well-informed deputies. Not at all. The aim rather is to bring
together a group of nonentities who are dependent on others for their views and
who can be all the more easily led, the narrower the mental outlook of each
individual is. That is the only way in which a party policy, according to the
evil meaning it has to-day, can be put into effect. And by this method alone it
is possible for the wirepuller, who exercises the real control, to remain in
the dark, so that personally he can never be brought to account for his actions.
For under such circumstances none of the decisions taken, no matter how
disastrous they may turn out for the nation as a whole, can be laid at the door
of the individual whom everybody knows to be the evil genius responsible for
the whole affair. All responsibility is shifted to the shoulders of the Party
as a whole.

In practice no actual
responsibility remains. Responsibility arises only from personal duty and not
from the obligations that rest with a parliamentary assembly of empty talkers.

The parliamentary
institution attracts people of the badger type, who do not like the open light.
No upright man, who is ready to accept personal responsibility for his acts,
will be attracted to such an institution.

As a contrast to this
kind of democracy we have the German democracy, which is a true democracy; for
here the leader is freely chosen and is obliged to accept full responsibility
for all his actions and omissions. The problems to be dealt with are not put to
the vote of the majority; but they are decided upon by the individual, and as a
guarantee of responsibility for those decisions he pledges all he has in the
world and even his life.

The objection may be
raised here that under such conditions it would be very difficult to find a man
who would be ready to devote himself to so fateful a task. The answer to that
objection is as follows:

We thank God that the
inner spirit of our German democracy will of itself prevent the chance
careerist, who may be intellectually worthless and a moral twister, from coming
by devious ways to a position in which he may govern his fellow-citizens. The
fear of undertaking such far-reaching responsibilities, under German democracy,
will scare off the ignorant and the feckless.

But should it happen
that such a person might creep in surreptitiously it will be easy enough to
identify him and apostrophize him ruthlessly. Somewhat thus: "Be off, you
scoundrel. Don't soil these steps with your feet; because these are the steps
that lead to the portals of the Pantheon of History, and they are not meant for
place-hunters but for men of noble character."

Such were the views I formed
after two years of attendance at the sessions of the Viennese Parliament. Then
I went there no more. ..

It was to the merit of
the Pan-German movement in Austria during the closing decade of the last
century that it pointed out clearly and unequivocally that a State is entitled
to demand respect and protection for its authority only when such authority is
administered in accordance with the interests of the nation, or at least not in
a manner detrimental to those interests.

The authority of the
State can never be an end in itself; for, if that were so, any kind of tyranny
would be inviolable and sacred.If a
government uses the instruments of power in its hands for the purpose of
leading a people to ruin, then rebellion is not only the right but also the
duty of every individual citizen.

The question of
whether and when such a situation exists cannot be answered by theoretical
dissertations but only by the exercise of force, and it is success that decides
the issue.

Every government, even
though it may be the worst possible and even though it may have betrayed the
nation's trust in thousands of ways, will claim that its duty is to uphold the
authority of the State. Its adversaries, who are fighting for national
self-preservation, must use the same weapons which the government uses if they
are to prevail against such a rule and secure their own freedom and
independence. Therefore the conflict will be fought out with 'legal' means as
long as the power which is to be overthrown uses them; but the insurgents will not
hesitate to apply illegal means if the oppressor himself employs them.

Generally speaking, we
must not forget that the highest aim of human existence is not the maintenance
of a State of Government but rather the conservation of the nation (people).

If the nation (people)
is in danger of being oppressed or even exterminated the question of legality
is only of secondary importance. The established power may in such a case
employ only those means which are recognized as 'legal'. Yet the instinct of
self-preservation on the part of the oppressed will always justify, to the
highest degree, the employment of all possible resources.

Only on the
recognition of this principle was it possible for those struggles to be carried
through, of which history furnishes magnificent examples in abundance, against
foreign bondage or oppression at home.

Human rights are above
the rights of the State. But if a people be defeated in the struggle for its
human rights this means that its weight has proved too light in the scale of
Destiny to have the luck of being able to endure in this terrestrial world.

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Dedication

Dedicated to young Americans-May you benefit from observing how certain shadowy forces contrive to ruthlessly advance their own financial and ideological objectives at your expense. They select, then groom, and ultimately control many of our highest government officials. They plan the wars and through "foreign policy" arrange to set the stage for incidents to initiate hostilities. They overwork the word "Peace" to mislead you and create a plausible smoke screen in order to conceal their real operations. You can recognize who "they" are. Curtis Dall "FDR-My Exploited Father-in-Law".